Let's Make the White House Correspondents Dinner an Awards Show

RUSH: Did you watch the Grammys last night? Snerdley, you missed it. Folks, I gotta tell you something. I'm beginning to think -- this a quick Grammy takeaway. I ended up having to watch the Grammy opening a little bit. You know, this weekend I had tech problems in everything except my iPhone and iPad. Well, no, I had one in my iPad. Printers here are all screwed up, printers at home are all screwed up. Every remote control for my audio-video system at home is blown, not working. It's just a total mess. It's a total breakdown, total melt. So I had to find work-arounds. It took me 15 minutes just to turn on my TV last night and have audio for it.

Now, I don't really have a TV, but for all intents and purposes it takes 30 seconds, normally. It took 15 minutes last night and a bunch of trips to the projection room and back to the equipment rack and back and forth, and it was a mess. It's a rear screen projector. It's in its own room. (interruption) Everybody that's got a projector has a projection room unless they hang it on the ceiling, and we don't want to do that. That's crap. I mean, that's not optimal. Not optimal.

Anyway, when I finally got it on, it came on to CBS and the Grammys were on. We're doing some things at the same time, but I was watching the Grammys in the corner of my eye, and something hit me about the Grammys. Say whatever you want about 'em -- you know, they did the mock gay marriage, mass gay marriage ceremony and all that. But nevertheless, make no mistake, I know what the Grammys are. All of these awards shows, you know what they really are? I find this fascinating. These awards shows, be it the Oscars, be it the Golden Globes, be it the People's Choice -- the only thing that's not is the CMAs. The CMAs are real, the country music awards. But this, the Grammys, what this basically is is these people in these industries getting together to make fun of their audience.

They basically try to shock and impugn people in flyover country. They make fun of 'em. That's half of what those shows are, the risque, just crossing the line. They're trying to offend the straitlaced in their audiences so that they can all be part of the joke at the after party. I think I've got this down pat. This is really about making fun of their audience, really about jamming their audiences. But despite all of that, at least these awards shows have some substance. They do showcase individuals who have become popular, genuinely, their popularity stems from selling something people wanted and liked. Their popularity comes from offering content that mass numbers of people are willing to buy or obtain.

That is a stark contrast to politics. Even though we make fun of it here, and even though we laugh at it and take our shots at it, there is far more substance in show biz than politics. As you know, I've always said, politics is show biz for the ugly, and their Academy Awards is the White House Correspondents Dinner every May in the grand ballroom at the Hilton hotel. I think they ought to take a page from the Grammys and the Academy Awards and the People's Choice awards and the Golden Globes and totally change the format of the White House Correspondents Dinner. Because what they're doing, the White House Correspondents Dinner is totally phony. There's no substance to it at all.

It's a bunch of people who don't like each other getting together in a room one night a year acting like they do like each other. There's no substance at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The things that are real, that are dividing the country, the things that separate people are not even discussed or talked about except maybe by the comedian, the entertainment of the night. But it's phony! You know, the partisanship, the rancor, the disagreements, it's never on display when the people in politics do their Academy Awards. So I think what they ought to do is totally change the format for the White House Correspondents Dinner. I would love to see -- and I would watch this. I might even attend this one. I haven't been since the early nineties.

I think there ought to be actual awards, trophies, in various categories. Biggest Fraud of the Year. Best Recovery from a Scandal in the Past Year. Largest Secret Donor Contributions Learned and Uncovered in the Past Year. Biggest Successful Under-the-Table Payoff. Most Insincere Apology of the Past Year. Would you not like that? If the White House Correspondents Dinner was made up like your average Grammys or Academy Awards, wouldn't you watch this?

Best Excuse for Failure by a Politician in the Past Year. You know, and the award goes to whoever the judges, the panel, the experts vote. The Most Outrageous Smear of the Year that Worked. The Most Outrageous Smear of the Year that Failed. The Most Unforgivable Sellout. The Best Successful Hoax. The Best Lie. The Best Lie That Failed. Yeah, they've already given that award out. Obama won the Best Lie by some outfit called PolitiFact.

Most Useful Lie Told in the Past Year. Best-Editing-to-Remove-Substance-from-a-Piece-of-Video Award. (NBC would win it every year.) Best Supporting Lie to Further the Best Hoax of The Year. The Most Undeserved Puff Piece in the Washington Post Style Section of the Year. I mean, it's limitless -- and in that way we could turn the White House Correspondents Dinner and politics into the same kind of real substance that the Grammys were last night.

Stop and think of this for just a second.

The White House Correspondents Dinner every year is the phoniest night in the world. People that don't like each other get together for one night acting like they do. They shelve all the disagreements -- except for the comedian, the entertainer, and the president with his remarks (depending on who the president is). It's phony. It's just like the rest of politics. I want to bring some reality to it.

Because this would be covered on the network not C-SPAN and this would be a tough ticket to get into. See? This is me being helpful, being cooperative, bipartisan, attempting to help people. I tried to help my president with the State of the Coup theme and now the White House Correspondents Dinner based with just some casual observance of the Grammys last night.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Oh, yeah, look at the phones. People love my idea of how to totally rework the White House Correspondents Dinner and turn it into real substance and have it reach out and actually connect with the American voter as he understands politics and how he actually sees it, rather than this phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roller backslapping and hand shaking. "Hey, we love each other! Hey, everything's cool! Hey, we're in it together!" They hate each other. They're trying to destroy each other.

We need to give them awards for who's doing that better than anybody else.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Dave in Senecaville, Ohio. It's great to have you on the EIB Network, Dave. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, how you doing?

RUSH: Good.

CALLER: Hey, I was telling Mr. Snerdley, I was listening to your idea about doing this show, basically you're making fun. I think it would be something that would be fantastic to do. You've got enough people and enough talent, and probably some other people in the radio world that would love to join you, pay-per-view. I'd pay to see it. It would be a fantastic fundraiser for the military or for whoever you would want to make it.

RUSH: So you're saying you would pay to watch a show like that?

CALLER: Oh, boy, would I ever. I refuse to watch those shows on TV, because I'm like you, I really do believe that they're making fun of people. I mean, they --

RUSH: They are. We're talking about two different things here. Like the Grammys last night, it's clear what they're doing, and the same thing with the Academy Awards. You got New York and LA and flyover country and they make fun of the people in flyover country, which is the bulk of the audience, or they laugh at them, or they purposely try to offend. That's what they're trying to do. They just love it. They make fun of their own audience. They try to shock their own audience so that their own audience is talking the next day about what a bunch of reprobates or whatever they are and they're laughing all the way to the bank doing that.

But the second thing, he's saying here, Dave in Senecaville, Ohio, would pay to see my idea of the revamp of the White House Correspondents Dinner made in the image of the Grammys or the People's Choice Awards or the Epidemic Awards or whatever. I'll go through it again. The problem is you couldn't get people in Washington to do it if they didn't participate. You could do it. But the thing that makes the Grammys or the Academy Awards work is it's the actual performers that are being awarded or nominated that make the show, that participate.

My idea to totally redo the White House Correspondents Dinner with awards for Biggest Fraud of the Year, Best Recovery From a Scandal, Best Lie for a Successful Purpose, Best Supporting Lie, Largest Secret Donor Contributions, Biggest Under-the-Table Payoff, Best Hoax Of The Year, Most Insincere Apology, if we did a show with awards like that, oh, can you imagine? And it would be real! That's how people look at politics. Instead this phony one-night get-together where people that hate each other's guts act like they all love each other and they're all on the same team, which actually may be more truthful than we know.

But for my purposes they put together this boring little show. I mean, the most exciting thing about the White House Correspondents Dinner is who the prettiest actress is that shows up and at whose table. The politicians are sitting there with saliva just dropping to the floor from their open mouths as they're salivating, 'cause politics is show biz for the ugly. I just came to the conclusion, those Grammys last night, say what you want, they were more substantive than anything in politics is. Politics is phony, plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roll. At least these people were really being given awards for serious achievements. I mean, they had sold items, sold best song, best album, best record, whatever.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, a point of clarification. I don't want anybody misunderstanding here. I'm not issuing a stamp of approval about the Grammy show's substance. It was horrible. It was despicable. That's not my point. My point is that whatever was going on in the show, the people that were given awards got them on the basis of substance. They sold more records or whatever the criteria.

Now, as for the show itself, A.J. McCarron, the former quarterback at Alabama is getting ready for the NFL draft. Now, I don't know why what A.J. McCarron thinks made the news, but I'm glad that it did. It's a Breitbart story. "Former Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron, who is preparing for the NFL Draft, was watching the Grammys on Sunday and felt that the 'really demonic' performances showed that 'there is a lot of evil in the world.' ...

"Katy Perry dressed up as a witch and was 'burned at the stake' in her act while gay couples were married to the song 'same love,'" and that song openly attacked right-wing conservatives and Christians. I mean, that's the point of these shows. I mean, let's face it, people all over the country buy music. People from all political stripes buy music. These people feel the need to go out and mock, insult, and lampoon their audience. That's what these shows have become.

They're trying to offend you. They're trying to get a rise out of you. They think you're a bunch of square hicks, even if you do buy their music -- and, of course, they're also currying favor with other people in their industry. The old cocktail party routine. It's why CNN still matters. Nobody watches, but because they have not strayed from the liberal path, they're still loved and adored and praised for courage and sticking to it, despite losing everything.

They have not watered down the liberalism. They're hanging in. As such, they're the latest failure to be given a resume enhancement. It says here, "Though it was unclear what performance prompted the tweet, McCarron later re-tweeted a response in which one of his followers wrote, 'I know right? I can only imagine what Katy's Preacher Father is thinking.'" Other performances included Jay-Z grabbing his wife Beyonce's butt on stage, and then the artists Macklemore & Ryan Lewis singing Same Love during the mass wedding.

It's amazing, Justin Bieber wasn't even there, folks, and all of this stuff still happened. It's clear what's going on. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not sanctioning or approving the content. The content of these shows long ago has been in the gutter, and they just keep digging deeper. But I know why. I know why. I know exactly what they're doing. Folks, as conservatives, we're despised. We literally are hated.

Because we have sound principles and guardrails, if you will, and we have definite beliefs in right and wrong and good and evil and how to best raise families and live life, and it just doesn't comport with anything they believe, and so we're a big threat. We are just a huge threat to these people, and this is them striking back. You know, the left, be it politicians or entertainers, will always tell you what they fear. That's all that's going on here.

But my point is simply that at the Grammys, Academy Awards, whatever, whatever's happening there on stage in terms of the show, the awards themselves are substantive. They're real. You may disagree with them and all that, but that's not happening in politics. The White House Correspondents Dinner needs to become an awards show in the same vein as the Grammys and the Academy Awards. That's all I was saying, and then I made what I think was a rather compelling idea.

I think we get 50 million people to watch it. Maybe more. Fifty million might be the floor. But we have to get all those people to participate, and you never know. As eager as they are to get on TV, politicians and cameras and all that, they might do it at some point. The winners wouldn't show up, I guarantee you that. Best hoax, best lie and the supporting role. The winners? Somebody will have to show up and pick up the award for them, 'cause they'd be busy working on the next lie and couldn't make the show.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Don in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Don. Glad you called. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Glad to get through. Hey, I'm liking this answer to the White House Correspondents Dinner. I think a new awards program that we could possibly call The Whoppers would be in order.

RUSH: (laughing) Not bad.

CALLER: And I'm gonna do Dave in Ohio one better. I'm willing to spend up to $10,000 if I can get a seat at a table up front.

RUSH: You would spend 10 grand for a seat or 10 grand on a table?

CALLER: Well, yeah, sure, the table. Yeah. I'll bring some friends. If you can give me a table up front for 10K, sure, but I'd spend 10K in total.

RUSH: I think... You know, people are glomming onto this thing. They're really, really, really loving it, 'cause it's a classic, 'cause it gets to the nub of it. It's a perfect illustration of how people view politics -- and, by the way, how the best in the business are rewarded in the modern era. The best lie, the best hoax, the best puff piece, the best under-the-table payment, the best scandal gotten away with despite front page media coverage. It's endless, the awards that we could come up with here, and turn the White House Correspondents Dinner into something that means something to people that watch it.